Oppn yet to get its act together in Maharashtra

Sunil Gatade
Senior Journalist

ONLY a miracle can prevent a second term for Maharashtra’s incumbent Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, when the counting of votes takes place on October 24, just a month away.

The BJP camp is upbeat as the opposition in the premier state is down in the dumps. At the same time, it is equally true that opposition stalwart Sharad Pawar, who will turn 80 this December, would be the lone ranger against a clean sweep by the BJP, even as he has been booked by the Enforcement Directorate for alleged money-laundering in connection with the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank scam. 

How much the Nationalist Congress Party supremo, who leads the fightback by the Congress-NCP and other allies, succeeds or fails would decide how bleak or bright is the opposition story at a time when the narrative has all been seized by the ruling party. 

With Rahul Gandhi resigning as party chief after the debacle in the Lok Sabha polls for the second successive time, the party has shot itself in the foot. Though Sonia Gandhi has stepped in as the interim party chief, the grand old party is in such disarray that even if God descends from heaven, he would be unable to set things right immediately, either in the state or the country.

Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah have used every trick in the trade to marginalise rivals as also allies in the state. Till now, the BJP has kept its old ideological ally, the Shiv Sena, on tenterhooks as regards seat sharing for the 288-member Assembly. This is because whenever it happens, and the political clock is ticking fast, it has to happen on BJP’s terms. The next Chief Minister would be Devendra Fadnavis, Shah has declared.

Sena was once the ‘elder brother’ of the BJP in state politics when Bal Thackeray used to call the shots. Now, Modi refers to the Sena supremo as his “younger brother”.  Much has changed in Maharashtra since May 2014 with Modi becoming the Prime Minister, securing an absolute majority for the BJP.  Others have to be the ‘also- rans’.

The Sena is utilising the coming polls to launch Aaditya Thackeray, son of the party chief, as the party’s CM candidate. A pro-Modi controversial news anchor has let the cat out of the bag by inadvertently remarking that Aaditya would prove to be another Rahul Gandhi. Though the anchor has since expressed regret to the Sena, for those in the know, the words look prophetic.  

For long, the BJP has done ‘pillion riding’ with Sena in the driver’s seat and it greatly benefitted its then leaders, Pramod Mahajan and Gopinath Munde, in taking the party to the countryside where at one time it was derided as a ‘Brahmin-Bania party’. Brahmin or Baman in derisive Marathi slang is a politically insignificant community, being less in numbers. The community, however, dominates the administration being educationally well off as compared to others. Incidentally, the 50-plus Fadnavis is a Brahmin. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah have a special interest in Maharashtra and it was bound to be so. Maharashtra and Gujarat were formed on May 1, 1960, after bifurcating the erstwhile Bombay state. With Mumbai as its capital, Maharashtra was bound to become the premier state. Gujarat too became well developed as Gujaratis are basically a business community. Incidentally, the who’s who from the world of business and finance in Mumbai are Gujaratis, including India’s richest man whose company has its headquarters in the megapolis. Shah was also born in Mumbai.

The BJP which was a laggard and was at number four in the state more than five years back is the main political party now. It is on cloud nine since having won most of the local body polls, be it the municipal or Zila Parishad elections. The exodus of several top leaders from the NCP and Congress to the BJP and the Sena in the past month or so showed the dejection in the opposition camp over the possible imminent defeat. Udayanraje Bhosale, a sitting NCP MP, who is a descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, has even resigned his Satara seat and from the party to join the BJP.

The state BJP under Fadnavis has taken several steps to expand its social base and is broadly credited for ensuring reservation in jobs and education to the dominant Marathas who have been agitating for quota to ensure a fair deal for the ‘have-nots’ among the community which constitutes more than 30 per cent of the state’s population.

In the outgoing House, the BJP had secured 122 seats, Shiv Sena 63, Congress 42 and NCP 41.  The BJP and Sena had contested the Assembly elections separately after the former sprang a surprise on the Sena which was not ready to give more seats to the BJP.

Now, Fadnavis is seeking to further demoralise the Congress-NCP by claiming that the BJP’s fight is with the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) of Prakash Ambedkar. Incidentally, the Congress and NCP leaders dub Aghadi as team B of the BJP.  The alliance of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi with Asaddudin Owaisi’s All-India Majlis-Ittihadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) is over after the Lok Sabha polls.  

A combative Modi and Shah are now going to town on the emotive Kashmir issue telling the people to ask Rahul Gandhi and Sharad Pawar whether they favour or oppose the scrapping of Article 370, seeking to turn the Assembly polls virtually into a referendum on the matter. “Show the people opposing the scrapping of Article 370 their place,” is the saffron refrain in the land of Shivaji Maharaj. They are also harping on the triple talaq issue as part of the politics of polarisation.

The opposition in Maharashtra is seeking to focus on economic issues, including the agrarian distress and farmer suicides, growing unemployment besides the recent havoc created by floods in parts of the state, especially western Maharashtra, but it is yet to get its act together.